By ZACHARY GOELMAN and YOAV GONEN
May 17, 2008
Education officials yesterday released a bid to soundproof a Queens high school that sits under the flight path to JFK Airport - for a whopping $52 million.
The project is scheduled to provide new windows, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and exterior work to the Rockaway Park building that houses Beach Channel HS and Channel View School of Research, education officials said.
State and federal transportation administrators - whose agencies are footing the bill under a 25-year-old noise-reduction program - said the schools had asked to be part of the program sometime before 2000, the year the allocations were first approved.
But many students currently attending the schools seemed perplexed by such a costly overhaul.
"Airplanes aren't a problem," said 14-year-old Jocelin Conpos ##MC##
##MC##about engine roar at Channel View.
"I've never heard an airplane in my life," added 10th-grader Michael Naraiswar, 16, who also attends Channel View.
Beach Channel principal David Morris declined to comment.
Since 1983, the Federal Aviation Administration has shelled out $130 million and the Port Authority has put in $30 million toward insulating schools near JFK and La Guardia airports from airplane blare, authorities said.
Any school within a sound path that exceeds 65 decibels inside its classrooms - the level at which normal conversations would be disrupted - may apply to participate.
Officials suggested the staggering charge for the Rockaway Park building's renovations - equivalent to the price tag for a new, 600-seat school - was in part attributable to the school's size and the escalating costs of construction.
School officials added that the extent of the work was the reason behind the big bill, adding that the project was dependent on an additional infusion of federal and state funds.
An education spokeswoman was not immediately able to say whether there had been complaints at the two schools.
While one Beach Channel 10th-grader acknowledged that planes were sometimes disruptive to his earth-science class because the windows faced the airport, two teachers and a school safety officer said din wasn't a problem at all.
